Suitability of hyperspectral imaging for rapid evaluation of thiobarbituric acid (TBA) value in grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) fillet

The suitability of hyperspectral imaging technique (400–1000 nm) was investigated to determine the thiobarbituric acid (TBA) value for monitoring lipid oxidation in fish fillets during cold storage at 4 °C for 0, 2, 5, and 8 days. The PLSR calibration model was established with full spectral region between the spectral data extracted from the hyperspectral images and the reference TBA values and showed good performance for predicting TBA value with determination coefficients (R2P) of 0.8325 and root-mean-square errors of prediction (RMSEP) of 0.1172 mg MDA/kg flesh. Two simplified PLSR and MLR models were built and compared using the selected ten most important wavelengths. The optimised MLR model yielded satisfactory results with R2P of 0.8395 and RMSEP of 0.1147 mg MDA/kg flesh, which was used to visualise the TBA values distribution in fish fillets. The whole results confirmed that using hyperspectral imaging technique as a rapid and non-destructive tool is suitable for the determination of TBA values for monitoring lipid oxidation and evaluation of fish freshness.